Mauritius

A sunny island that is not only a good place for tourists, but for solar water applications as well: The French Island of Mauritius experiences a great demand in support schemes for solar water heaters, albeit the administration of the programmes is showing some administrative difficulties.
Source: www.mauritius-erleben.de

Mauritius is going to have a new grant scheme for solar water heaters (SWH) of Mauritian Rupees (MUR) 5,000 (EUR 120). later in 2010. These grants will only be provided for products which meet the standards the Mauritius Standards Bureau (MSB) will define for the programme. Although the initial target had been 25,000 applications for the programme, in the end, the previous solar water heater scheme attracted over 49,000.

The new subsidy programme of the government of Mauritius has been a successful one. More than 4,000 solar water heaters have received a subsidy of 10,000 Mauritius Rupee (MUR), approximately € 279, by the Development Bank of Mauritius (DBM) since August 2008. The target for the first year of the programme is to install around 20,000 systems in households.

“Now, the solar water heating market is booming,” Raj Appalaswamy, sales coordinator of Kaylor Rotomoulders, a manufacturer of solar water heaters, affirms.